The Evolution and Just Plain Mean History of Brassieres

I read an article over a year ago about bras on one of my favorite, snarky, new wave feminist websites, Jezebel.com.  The article was titled "Behold Super Olde-Tymey Brassiere Devices."  I want to share what I learned from the article and what I learned doing my own research on these angry, hateful bras.

When you think about bras today there are many, many oftentimes even confusing choices.  To name a few, there are convertible, strapless, tee shirt, chicken cutlets, backless, push-up, demi cup, full coverage, sports, underwire, cotton, satin, sateen, lace, and more.  We women weren't always so lucky though.  Curse your bra all you want, but be glad they've come as far as they have in the last eighty years.  Prior to around 1925, women had virtually no options.  The bra is a relatively knew invention, a 20th century invention, and, at the end of the twenties, the bra was given considerable attention.  Sure, there were your prior forerunners, but nothing like the modern bra we've come to know and wear.

Around 1930, inventors, mostly ignorant men (the ones who still fiddle with a bra hook), tried their little brains at constructing bras.  Their inventions were more fitting for the construction of a building or scaffolding or even a cantilever bridge.  If the bras weren't designed with a building or bridge in mind, they were designed with medical science in mind, and they resembled medical braces or, even worse, medieval torture devices.

Here are a few pictures, with my own commentary, that I stole from the United States Patent Office.


This bra was patented in 1929.  Please look at the sad, little face on that good time flapper with her cute bob haircut.  No gin fizz or champagne was going to cheer her up, and she could forget doing the Charleston in that angry, mean bra.

 

This might be my favorite.  It was designed in the 1920s by a man, of course, you shouldn't be shocked.  He had to be an architect given his cruel, little cantilever there.  Then again does that look like columns leading up from the high waist to the underboob?  If you're trying to figure this one out, let me help you.  Yes, there is no fabric covering the boob its self.  That triangular shape you see does, however, cover the nipple lady bit.

Lets give thanks to the bra we tug at, the strapless one we pull up, and the underwire that cuts at the most tender places.  It could've been worse.